No 'Sweeping Stakes' left, Smith and Co. concentrate on orthodox cricket

Ravichandran Ashwins enviable record in Test matches at the Holkar Stadium has prompted the Australian batters to do away with the high risklow percentage sweep shots which brought their downfall in first two gamesAshwin has 18 wickets in two earlier Tests at this venue at an impressive average of 125 runs per wicketAustralia who arrived here after a week after their second innings surrender in Delhi turned up for the net session even before their scheduled timeThey were slammed over their tactics against Indian spinners at the Feroz Shah Kotla with half of the side falling to the poorly executed sweep shots on a slow and low surfaceHaving lost the chance to regain the BorderGavaskar trophy Australia looked keen to learn from their mistakes in their three hour plus training sessionRather than sweeping the ball Steve Smith and Co mainly attempted the front foot defence against the spinners besides stepping out to hit down the groundSmith and Usman Khawaja were the first ones to hit the nets and batted for more than an hour against Nathan Lyon and Matthew KuhnemannOne of the best batters against spin in the Australian set up Smiths performances have been underwhelming so far and he will be keen to correct that in the game beginning WednesdayLyon troubled both Khawaja and Smith as the duo looked determined to firm up their defence Most of the aerial hits came off rookie KuhnemannAlso Read Border Gavaskar Trophy With Warner yet to recover Australia have to take big calls for Indore TestIt was an hour of madness at Kotla that cost Australia the game despite fully knowing that sweep is a risky and least effective scoring option on Indian pitchesThey will need to trust their defence a lot a more and step out regularly to unsettle Ashwin and CoSuch was their frame of mind that Khawaja and Smith returned to nets for a second stint after all the batters had their time Apart from Khawaja the only other batter to have practised the sweep was Alex Carey who has now been dismissed four times playing the same shot with a very low degree of successMarnus Labuschagne Travis Head and Peter Handscomb faced offspinner Murphy and legspinner Mitchell Swepson who has reunited with the squad following the birth of his childHandscomb who has looked most comfortable against the spinners so far on the tour came down the pitch everytime Murphy and Swepson gave the ball some airHead the most aggressive of the Aussie batters in Delhi was particularly harsh on Swepson as he slog swept with the spinMitchell Starc bowls full tiltLeftarm pacer Mitchell Starc who missed the first two Tests due to a finger injury will replace skipper Pat Cummins in the playing eleven for the third Test with the latter back in Australia to be with his ailing motherStarc said he is not 100 percent yet but bowled to Cameron Green for close to an hour and generated good pace Lance Morris bowling alongside him and beat Green with his pace and movement on multiple occasionsGreen who also had a bowl later in the session is set to play his first game of the series after missing the first two Tests due to a finger injuryWith Cummins and David Warner out of reckoning Green and Starc look like automatic choices to fill in the voidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever